I am the Founder of Community of Liberty, a chapter based organization committed to pursuing the art of living in liberty, a member of the Publication Committee of the Claremont Review of Books, an Advisor to TheGold StandardNow.org, and a juror for the Bastiat Prize for Journalism. I have just published with my co-author Ralph Benko the booklet, "The 21st Century Gold Standard: For Prosperity, Security and Liberty," now available as a free download at AGoldenAge.com. I bring to my columns an extensive background in the investment management business, including my experience as an equity portfolio manager, strategist, president of my former firm’s retail sales and marketing subsidiary and member of the parent firm’s management committee. As such, I have been a student and observer of the political/economy and its affects on markets, businesses, and my own business for more than 30 years.

The Audacity of Power: President Obama Vs. The Catholic Church

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

In one of the boldest, most audacious moves ever made by a President of the United States, President Barack Obama is on the brink of successfully rendering moot the very first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (emphasis added). If he forces the Catholic Church to comply with the Health and Human Services ruling to provide its employees with insurance that covers activities the Church has long held sinful — abortion via the morning after pill, sterilization and contraceptives — then the precedent is clear: when religious beliefs conflict with government decrees, religion must yield.

The story line that President Obama miscalculated in picking this fight with the Catholic Church vastly underestimates the man’s political skill and ambition. His initial approval of the ruling requiring the Church pay for abortion drugs and sterilization was but the first step in a calculated strategy to further his goal of transforming America.

President Obama chose to pick this fight with the Catholic Church by choosing to release the regulations first, and then, as he explained in last Friday’s statement to the press, spend “the next year (before the new regulations take effect) to find an equitable solution that would protect religious liberty and insure that every woman has access to the care that she needs.” The alternative would have been to find the “equitable solution” before announcing the regulations. In other words, this entire political fire storm is a set-up by the Administration.

The original HHS ruling put the Catholic Church into the position of choosing one of these two options:

Option A: The Church complies with the law and violates its own teachings and principles of faith. Such a choice would strip the Church of its legitimacy and make it a de facto vassal of the state. In this case, the ability of the Church to challenge the government’s political power is vastly reduced, if not completely destroyed. Faith, charity and civil society are marginalized. Government wins.

Option B: The Church as a matter of conscience refuses to obey the law, and stops offering health insurance to its employees. In this case, the Church gets crushed by hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. As a consequence, its ability to fulfill its religious mission by funding hospitals, schools and charities is sharply reduced if not destroyed. As the Church is forced to withdraw from its active role in civil society, those who believe in government will rush to fill the void. Faith, charity and civil society are marginalized. Government wins.

The risk to President Obama was the Church would create “Option C” and engage in a broad political battle to force the full repeal of the ruling or, if that fails, the defeat of President Obama in the November election followed by the repeal of ObamaCare. Under Option C, government’s power is reduced. Faith, charity and civil society win.

President Obama’s political skill is demonstrated by his anticipation and preparation for just this outcome. First, he has used the issue to energize his political base by positioning his Administration as the defender of “women’s health” and attacking his opponents for taking him up on his implicit dare to make it an issue in the Presidential campaign.

Second, last Friday’s decision to “retreat,” as proclaimed by the weekend Wall Street Journal’s page 1 headline and find a way to “accommodate” religious freedom, was pure subterfuge. The notion of retreat or compromise is pure spin. The President’s operative statement reflected zero tolerance for those that would disagree with his policies.

He announced: (the imperial) “we’ve reached a decision on how to move forward. Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services -– no matter where they work. So that core principle remains (emphasis added). But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company -– not the hospital, not the charity -– will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.

Got that? The insurance company will be required to offer the service, but will be forbidden from explicitly billing the Catholic organization for providing this benefit. Such a construct is a fraud. Of course the employer will have to pay for these benefits. And, even if they didn’t, the Church is still being forced to support what it believes are sinful acts. This “equitable solution” is simply an attempt to soften the blow of forcing the Catholic Church to accommodate the dictates of the now supreme federal government. It’s a face saving version of Option A.

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Reading more right wing conspiracy theory into birth control pills is quite the stretch. What you propose is the anti-liberty position. President Obama is taking the individual’s choice of whether to take or not take birth control out of the hands of both “the government” and “the church” and putting it where it belongs, with the individual and their physician.

Profoverride says “President Obama is taking the individual’s choice of whether to take or not take birth control out of the hands of both “the government” and “the church” and putting it where it belongs, with the individual and their physician.”

Absolutely not. The individual is free to take birth control. The government is getting into this argument by mandating that the employer/insurance company pay for it.

“Employers”, “insurance companies”, “the church” & “the government” are all just legal entities that have no existence in the real world. “The government” can’t get into an argument with anyone or anything, only people can, unless of course you subscribe to that corporate personhood nonsense. Forcing one’s moral beliefs down the throats of others and then justifying it by pointing to “the will” of some vaporware legal entity is absurd. Your counter argument seems based upon money. If a woman chooses to not use birth control, there is no money involved. Money is only involved when a woman chooses to use birth control, hence the real issue goes back to forcing one’s moral views on another and not some contrived smoke screen about liberty or communism or (fill in the blank). If the issue involved something that most people would consider unconscionable (say – honor killings) you would have an argument, but birth control is accepted by large majorities of the populace (including Catholics). The mandate prevents a Talibanesque cram down, thus ensuring the liberty of a woman to make a legitimate, rational choice on whether to use birth control or not.

Are you being serious? Do you not know how employers and their insurance companies actually work? Let’s have a look shall we?

Contraception is a product. That product has a cost associated to it. It is not “free.” If an employer and/or the insurance agency is forced into providing this coverage for all employees, the cost of the plan will be effected somehow and it will be passed on to someone. Who does the insurance company pass the cost to? The employer who uses that insurance. Contrary to popular fantasy economics, money cannot be created out of thin air. To put it in terms everyone will understand, “Nothing in life is free.”

Also, regarding this “right” to contraception that all of a sudden has cropped up everywhere. Do you believe in the right to bear arms? If so, does it mean that government should purchase a gun for everyone? Or better yet, does it mean that the government should force employers to purchase a gun for everyone? There is a difference between the right to posses and use something and the “right” to have it at no cost to ourselves. This distinction has been lost in the national conversation. Even if women have the “right” to use oral contraceptives, it still begs the question as to why the cost for this should come out of the employer’s pocket or the pocket’s of the insurance companies….????

I have to agree with a fellow writer here: “There is a not-so-subtle redefinition of “health care” in this whole debate. There is a certain amount of irony that under the president’s health care bill and the accompanying HHS ruling, I will not be able to receive Tylenol or toothpaste for free, but women will be able to receive birth control and abortifacients for free. Tylenol is a drug that actually tries to cure something that is “wrong” with the body, and toothpaste is authentically “preventative” in terms of dental health problems. Yet birth control and abortifacients have little to do with the health of the body. In fact, they are often used for reproductive systems that are otherwise heathy. They are designed to take a perfectly healthy and well-functioning bodily system and stop it from functioning how it should. Since when did fertility and pregnancy become a disease? Since when is birth control more “preventative” than toothpaste and abortifacients more of a “cure” than Tylenol

Whether we agree or disagree on the morality of birth control is not the relevant question here, nor is whether or not we agree or disagree on the “right” of a woman to take these drugs. The Catholic Church has always been clear on this, but it seems to me that there is something else at issue here. Even for those who condone the consumption of these drug, it is a rather large leap to insist that someone else pays for it.”

To sum up, Matthew Warner says it exactly how it is: “Obama offered his “compromise” exemption for religious institutions regarding his contraception mandate. Now, instead of the religious institution having to pay for it directly, the insurance company (which the religious institution is paying) will pay for it instead. I remember this one. It was back in college when you gave your money to the old kid to buy your beer for you. Brilliant! I knew the whole college professor background was gonna come in handy for this president.”

A Catholic Institution opting out of providing a product that it finds contrary to its convictions and moral teachings is doing nothing else but exercising its very own constitutional rights. Women are free to purchase their pills and contraceptive devices from somewhere else. Catholic institutions are not stopping anyone from going out and buy contraceptives. Anyone who cannot see the basic logic here and who insists on this “Catholics imposing their morals” on everyone idea has such a jaundiced perspective and disregard for the basic principles found in our constitution that it would just be silly to even try to have a constructive conversation with them on this issue.

You obviously missed a central tenant completely. You talk as if “A Catholic Institution” is actually a real entity instead of just an abstract sequentialist cover for religious bigotry, hatred and fear mongering.

Well, then I know where our fundamental disagreement is then. You acknowledge no objective truth or law outside of yourself – you reduce the whole human, moral and societal equation to mere subjective opinion and taste. Its a wonder you even bother making arguments about anything.

2000 year old institution that has never changed her teachings in not a visible institution?. Go read the other side of history. Stop being bias. Open your eyes to what the Catholic Church really does and believes.

It’s a clever move on the part of the administration to choose a doctrine that most people, even Catholics, do not strongly believe in, and frame it as a “women’s health” or “reproductive health” issue. After all, who would want to adversely affect health?

I think the Catholic Church is making a mistake in not challenging this terminology. Contraception is “health” only if we consider pregnancy unhealthy. Moreover, prescription contraceptives are not without health risks themselves – that’s why they’re prescription.

Regarding Mr. Knapp’s comment about the Catholic Health Association: hospitals are not the only entities involved. What about Catholic schools and other charities?

If the Church does not give in on this, the issue will likely wind up at the Supreme Court, and I hope and pray that the First Amendment will prevail. If not – what’s next?